UCLG·CGLU · www.uclg.org
with the FMCU-UTO (the other major generalist association). But at this point, IULA hit a financial crisis and the association’s leadership felt it was time for a change of direction. I was asked by Norbert Burger from 1998 to take on the role of Interim Manager (effectively acting SG) for the next period. I met with Michel Bescond and FMCU officers, and Norbert Burger met with Daby Diagne, the new President of FMCU, and we opened negotiations in a formal way for the first time. My first meeting in my new IULA role was the IULA WEXCOM in Helsinki, when Selahattin Yildirim of IULA-EMME introduced us to the quiet and polite mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Alas, I have lost the pretty picture book of Istanbul he presented to me! The moment I started with IULA, another issue came up – the membership of China’s cities. A Capital Cities Forum had been established in embryonic form, and the offer of the City of Taipei to host the first conference had been agreed. I have nothing but admiration for Taipei, who have always played a positive role in IULA, but I can see a political problem when it jumps at me. It was in the interests of IULA and of world local government, in my view, to bring the Chinese cities into our organisation. We could not afford to be side-tracked into a dispute over the definition of capital cities. So I instructed our team member who went to Taipei to block
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any final declaration which could raise this issue. The City and its Mayor were not happy, and I felt bad about this. But it was necessary. In the Asia Pacific region, Peter Woods had done a great deal to prepare the ground in China for their future involvement.
with inadequate resources to play the global role that was needed, or to exercise the level of influence required. IULA and FMCU in part complemented each other geographically, and in part competed with each other.
In 1999, we held a great IULA Congress in Barcelona, back to back with the Metropolis congress. The city were great hosts, and I enjoyed working with Margarita Obiols and her team, with the strong backing of Mayor Joan Clos. I feel the Declaration we adopted there still sums up most the key points about the role of cities and local governments in today’s world.
But culturally and linguistically, the two associations were far apart, and it has been a long road to bring these two traditions together. History and geopolitics were also important – prior to the end of the Cold War, broadly speaking FMCU was a bit more to the left, IULA a bit more to the right. But after 1989, none of this seemed relevant any more. More important perhaps was IULA’s concentration on national associations of local government, compared to FMCU’s base in individual towns and cities. This made the issue of unification more complex.
Also in Barcelona on this occasion, the IULA WEXCOM, after a long and tense debate, admitted the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries to membership. Another important meeting there (organised by CEMR) saw the Palestinian and Israeli associations co-sign a short cooperation memorandum, moderated by CEMR’s President Giscard d’Estaing. There followed 6 long years of negotiations with FMCU, to prepare for the coming of United Cities and Local Governments. I feel that the birth of UCLG was something of a miracle. Everyone could see the logic of unification – we had two smallish international associations
In 1999, Jacques Jobin became Secretary General of IULA, and Max Ng’andwe of Zambia the President. Jacques was absolutely committed to the cause of local government and has a great track record – but it soon became clear that he (and the President) were ill at ease with the proposed merger. This led to some extraordinarily difficult WEXCOM meetings, with big arguments and divisions over big and small issue to do with unification. The unifying factor was the dislike of WACLAC, and IULA’s decision to withdraw
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